Ten prizes will be awarded at the ceremony to scientists and
other academics in fields as diverse as physics and environmental
protectionto economics and literature. As in years past, audience
members and online viewers can expect a slew of intellectually
stimulating shenanigans over the course of the evening. [ Watch
Live @ 6 p.m. ET: Ig Nobel Awards ]

The Ig Nobel prizes are awarded to researchers (or a group of
researchers) whose work "makes people laugh and then think,"
according to Improbable Research, the organization that hosts the
annual ceremony.

While the organization does not give any clues as to who might be
receiving this year's prizes, it's likely that the lucky winners
will not disappoint in terms of amusing research subjects. Last
year, Ig Nobel recipients included a team of researchers from
China and Japan that assessed how listening to opera music
affected mice that had recently received
heart transplants. The 2013 Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology went
to a group of researchers whose work confirmed that people who
think they are drunk also think they are attractive.

Some of the other highlights of this year's ceremony will likely
be a remarkably short series of educational talks, known as the
24/7 lectures, in which some of the world's most respected
thinkers have 24 seconds to explain a subject related to their
fields of study. When the 24 seconds are up, the speaker will
then be asked to summarize his or her lecture in just seven
words.

For example, last year, Melissa Franklin, a professor of physics
at Harvard University, was called upon to educate the audience on
the topic
of force. Her 24-second poem on the subject was well
received, but it was her concluding summary, "Equal opposite
attractive repulsive bang ding crash ow," that really brought the
message home for non-physicists (even though it was one word over
the allotted seven-word maximum).

This year, three Nobel laureates will be participating in the
24/7 lectures, including Carol Greider, a geneticist who won the
2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for her work on
chromosome-protecting nucleotide sequences known as telomeres.

In addition to these brief lectures, the ceremony will also
feature a mini-opera about food, which is the theme of this
year's event. The opera, titled "What's Eating You," is about
"people who stop eating food and nourish themselves exclusively
with pills," according to Improbable Research. The opera will be
performed in part by the ten Nobel laureates that are expected to
attend this year's ceremony.

The ten lucky recipients of the 2014 Ig Nobel Prizes will be
invited to a gala ceremony held in their honor at Harvard's
Sanders Theatre. Prize winners will also be invited to speak at a
series of informal lectures held Saturday (Sept. 20) at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), also in Cambridge,
Mass.